There's a better word for what I am: an apatheist.
It's a neologism that fuses "apathy" and "theism." It means someone who has absolutely no interest in the question of a god's (or gods') existence, and is just as uninterested in telling anyone else what to believe.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Partisanship

Given all the pixels wasted on "partisan vs. bipartisan", I figure wasting a few more on my opinion is OK.

Most of my adult life I've considered myself an independent. I only became a Democrat when, during the Clinton years, the Republicans adopted an extremist agenda that I believed was destructive to America. I'm not a big fan of the Democratic agenda, but at least it's not going to destroy the country. Sometimes the lesser evil is the only choice available.

When our shrub came into power I got really worried, because I read their agenda. It wasn't about doing "good for America", but about using government to enhance the power of an elite few. The corporations were being put ahead of the people. And I realized that the Republicans would lie, cheat, and steal to maintain their power.

The agenda should have been clear when our shrub's tax cuts passed. Huge breaks for the corporations and the rich, tiny "feel good" tax cuts for the rest of us. It was easy to market, because nobody "likes" taxes. But in reality every civilization in history has had some form of taxation, in order to pay for the infrastructure that allows society to function. Another reality: Americans are among the LEAST taxed citizens in the developed world and in history. As we watch various parts of our infrastructure deteriorate, remember those tax cuts.

The next thing to think about was the agenda of the people our shrub put in his cabinet. Back in '97, a group called "the project for the new American century" published several papers on foreign policy that scared the shit out of anyone with any sense of history. They advocated expansive use of military force to achieve a kind of economic imperialism whereby America would control the natural resources of much of the globe. The PNAC crowd thought that this could be achieved by militarily imposing "pro-western democracies" on other countries. The entire concept struck me as delusional, as anyone with a grasp of history should see. When our shrub named his initial cabinet, almost all of them were drawn from PNAC. They started planning wars on day one. 9/11 gave them the justification they wanted.

On the political front, Karl Rove vowed to create "a permanent Republican majority". To that end, all appointments were based on political ideology instead of competence. The DOJ scandal is the latest, most glaring, example, but it was clear at the outset. EPA, HHS, FDA, state and justice officials, and others were chosen to advance the republican party over the best interests of the general public. To carry out their agenda, the administration imposed a code of secrecy unprecedented in American government. The first example was the Cheney energy task force. It's taken 6 years for the public to learn anything about who met and what they were planning. Ask yourself a simple question: "why?". If the goal was to form an energy policy that was for the benefit of the people, surely the planning could be done in a very public way. When Cheney insisted on secrecy, I (and many others) knew that we were about to get screwed. Energy plans are only hidden when there's something to hide.

My next major objection to our shrub was quite simple: the SCOTUS. Supreme Court Justices are in for a long time. As we've been shown, our shrub is against reproductive rights, civil rights, and basic human rights. We're gonna be fighting these guys for a long, long time.

Which brings me to the issue of parisanship. Bi-partisinship is great if both parties are working to benefit society and only disagree about how best to achieve it. When one party is only working to enhance their own power, you cannot compromise with them. While our current Democrats aren't worth a whole lot, I don't think they're actively trying to harm us. Our current Republicans are.

It's very simple:

Our current administration have placed themselves above the constitution. They have used the power of law enforcement to subvert the law.

They have conducted an illegal war based on a delusional ideology, and in doing so drained our treasury of the funds that could be better used for the needs of our people.

They have threatened the health of the entire planet, by putting corporate profits ahead of a responsible energy policy.

For these, and countless other, reasons there can be no bi-partisan compromise with them.

4 comments:

Amen, brother! The PNAC document is this administration's Mein Kampf. You read it afterward and you think, sweet Jesus, we should have taken them seriously because they really tried to do everything that they said they would.

Worse is how Americans believe we deserve this treatment and that corporations really do have our best interests at heart.

Government by nature should be an opponent of corporations. Not meant to obliterate but to limit. I don't know how long it is going to take to un-privatize all these government functions that have been turned over to private industry. Like making war and owning highways.